Newspapers use sales and marketing concepts in order to catch people attention and sell their ideas or products. So, if our status reports have – in essence - the same goals, how can we use those concepts in our reporting process?
Status Reports are a powerful tool that needs to be used by successful managers to help achieve the project goals. Most of the times, it’s the only opportunity you have to sell your project, request priority treatment or escalate issues with your CEOs, sponsors, etc.
Are we there yet? The most annoying question may only be answered if we have a strategy.
We used to think that managing a project was mainly about creating a very comprehensive plan that includes scope, estimates, tasks, etc. However, in a world that values more adapting to constant changes than anything else, those plans are not really the answer and we need something else, the strategy.
Building the team is one of the most important factors that will determine the project success. This post is not about how to use the last and coolest technology to work in a distributed team, but to show that although staffing a remote team could be a valid alternative, it hurts the team and we need to learn how to manage it.
Note: there is no need to explain why, just google "team collocation".
Staffing people in remote locations is like going into debt. Yes, I'm using the famous technical debt concept developed by Ward Cunningham. OOPSLA 1992
As a PM you can decide to hire a remote developer and take on that debt, but you also need to think that every day that developer is assigned to your project, you will keep on accruing interests and it will be harder to replace that person/team and recover from it.
